A very worthy poetical clerk was John Bennet, shoemaker, of Woodstock.  A long account of him appears in the Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers, written by W.E.  Winks.  He inherited the office of parish clerk from his father, and with it some degree of musical taste.  In the preface to his poems he wrote:  “Witness my early acquaintance with the pious strains of Sternhold and Hopkins, under that melodious psalmodist my honoured Father, and your approved Parish Clerk.”  This is addressed to the Rev. Thomas Warton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and sometime curate of Woodstock, to whose patronage and ready aid John Bennet was greatly indebted.  Southey, who succeeded Warton in the Professorship, wrote that “This Woodstock shoemaker was chiefly indebted for the patronage which he received to Thomas Warton’s good nature; for my predecessor was the best-hearted man that ever wore a great wig.”  Certainly the list of subscribers printed at the beginning of his early work is amazingly long.  Noblemen, squires, parsons, great ladies, all rushed to secure the cobbler-clerk’s poems, which were published in 1774.  The poems consist mainly of simple rhymes or rustic themes, and are not without merit or humour.  He is very modest and humble about his poetical powers, and tells that his reason for publishing his verses was “to enable the author to rear an infant offspring and to drive away all anxious solicitude from the breast of a most amiable wife.”  His humour is shown in the conclusion of his Dedication, where he wrote: 

“I had proceeded thus far when I was called to measure a gentleman of a certain college for a pair of fashionable boots, and the gentleman having insisted on a perusal of what I was writing, told me that a dedication should be as laconic as the boots he had employed me to make; and then, taking up my pen, added this scrap of Latin for a Heel-piece, as he called it, to my Dedication: 

     “Jam satis est; ne me Crispini scrinia lippi
     Compilasse putes, vertum non amplius.”

The cobbler poet concludes his verses with the humorous lines: 

     “So may our cobler rise by friendly aid,
     Be happy and successful in his trade;
     His awl and pen with readiness be found,
     To make or keep our understandings sound.”

Later in life John Bennet published another volume, entitled Redemption.  It was dedicated to Dr. Mavor, rector of Woodstock.  It is a noble poem, far exceeding in merit his first essay, and it is a remarkable and wonderful composition for a self-taught village shoemaker.  The author-clerk died and was buried at Woodstock in 1803.